Every Little Helps Tesco

Tuesday, 18th October: Kantar Worldpanel today released the latest grocery share figures for the 12 weeks up to 9th October. For the first time since March 2015 Tesco have returned to growth, with sales increasing 1.3% year-on-year in the quarterly period. With average sales increasing by 0.8% across the sector over the last year, Tesco has grown ahead of the overall market. Tesco has increased its market share to 28.2%, its first year-on-year market share gain since 2011. Other winners were Iceland, Co-op and Waitrose.

UK inflation data was released by the Office for National Statistics this morning, with the sharpest jump in more than 2 years being recorded. As much as the recent weak sterling was expected to take hold, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Inflation had been expected to tick up to 0.9% from 0.6% in August but the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 1.0% in the year to September, driven by a seasonal rise in clothing prices, increase in hotel stay and the rising cost of fuel. The recent fall out between Tesco and Unilever was the first sign to consumers that prices are set to rise on imported goods – and the weak pound is expected to push inflation back up to the 2% target by around Q3 of 2017.

Burberry released first-half figures ahead of the European open this morning, reporting a 4% decline in underlying revenues in the first 6 months of the year, with weak sales in Hong Kong and the US attributing to the fall. However, foreign exchange movements, more so the recent falling pound has led to revenues increasing 5%. The high end fashion brand has warned though that revenues over the coming 6 months will be down as they expect fewer orders from US departments stores. The group cemented themselves to the bottom of the FTSE 100 over the course of the day, falling more than 10% intra-day, ending the day lower by 7.21%.

Netflix subscription numbers are on the up, just as the dark nights are setting in. The growth in subscribers beat expectations as 3.2m international customers signed up to the streaming device. It brings the total number of subscribers to 83.3m in the 3 months to end of September.